Case, William

Case, William, missionary to the Indians in Canada, was born in Swansea, Mass., Aug. 27, 1760. He embraced a religious life in 1803, and was received on trial in the New York Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1805. His first appointment was to the Bay of Quinte, Canada. In 1809 he served as missionary at Detroit. From 1810 to 1827 he served as presiding elder in various districts in Western and Northern New York, and in Canada. In 1828 Canada was given up to the Wesleyan Methodists, and Case was made superintendent of Indian missions and schools; and from 1830 to 1833 he was general superintendent, without episcopal powers, of the Methodist societies in Canada. A great part of his time, in all these years, was spent in missionary work among the Indians. In 1837 he was made principal of the Wesleyan native industrial school at Alnwick, in which service he remained until 1851. In 1854 he delivered a sermon before the Canadian Conference in commemoration of the fiftieth year of his service in the ministry. He died, in consequence of a fall from his horse, at the Alnwick mission-house, Canada, Oct. 19th, 1855. He filled all his ecclesiastical posts with honor; but his greatest field of usefulness was among the Indians, — The very spirit of Eliot seemed to be reproduced in him." — Minutes of the Canadian Conference, 1856; Wesl. Method. Magazine, 1856, p. 179; Sprague, Annals, 7:425; Case and his Contemporaries (Toronto, 1867).